I move:
That Seanad Éireann calls on the Minister for Enterprise and Employment to review the Copyright Act, 1963.
I welcome the Minister to the House and thank him for coming this evening to listen to our deliberations. I thank the House for the opportunity to debate this matter of public concern and hope all Senators will get an opportunity to state their views.
I called for this debate because, in my view, the Copyright Act, 1963, is no longer an acceptable response to copyright as it exists at present. Therefore, I call on the Minister for Enterprise and Employment to give urgent consideration to reforming this Act.
My concern arises from the sheer volume of representations from individuals and organisations that have been made to me on the issue. Publicans, shopkeepers, disco proprietors and many others have made their grave concern known to me regarding the arbitrary copyright charges being imposed without appeal. This is not an unimportant matter because it affects thousands of individual small businesses around the country. Often these small businesses are in a financially vulnerable position and can ill afford the punitive fines being asked of them.
At present these charges are being imposed by the Irish Music Rights Association — commonly known as IMRO — and the Phonographic Performance (Ireland) Limited — commonly known as PPI. Both organisations engage in the imposition of excessive and arbitrary charges. For example, PPI has over 80 different tariffs. It claims it is a licensing body as defined in section 29 (2) (b) of the Copyright Act, 1963. If this is the case it cannot be too long before manufacturers of glasses, linen, furniture, carpets, etc. will claim royalties for the public use of their products. This may seem an illogical extension of the Copyright Act but as far as I am concerned anything is possible given the current position. The charges asked of small businesses are often outrageous. I know of one nightclub owner who has been issued with a demand for £0.25 million recently.
I wish the House to bear in mind that IMRO and PPI are not small operations. They are powerful international organisations with monopoly positions which they do not hesitate to exploit. At present these organisations are using their considerable muscle to extract more and more royalties from individual small traders without reference to either the viability of the enterprise concerned or the ability to pay these royalties.
IMRO abuse their monopoly in a variety of ways. It takes independent retailers to court to seek injunctions in the case of disagreement; it reserves unto itself, by way of its licensing agreement, the right to raise charges at will and to increase charges retrospectively. This is utterly unacceptable. IMRO is subject to no control whatsoever and makes no reference to viability, ability to pay or even the usage of the music. As far as I am concerned, neither the user of the music nor the creator of the musical works has any real alternative but to work with this monopoly group. I have reservations about monopolies at the best of times, but this is a particularly unhealthy situation.
At present the small traders have no right of appeal. There is a glaring need for some form of an appeal procedure so that small traders have some form of defence. IMRO seems to lack any sense of proportion. By its own words it will demand charges from an old lady who is listening to a radio playing in her living room while working in her corner shop. There is something drastically wrong with the 1963 Act if IMRO can get away with describing this as a public performance and demand payment. At present our small traders are totally defenceless. The need for change is patently obvious.
At this time it is useful to point out the importance of small traders to the economy. They have a pivotal role to play in regional infrastructure, and they offer employment. We are not living in the most prosperous of times and unemployment continues to grow. Small businesses have much to contend with in this inhospitable climate without the additional problem of dealing with the outrageous charges imposed by IMRO and PPI and the heavy handed manner in which they seek to impose these charges.
The need, therefore, to amend the 1963 Copyright Act is clear. There are several proposals I would like to make in this regard. Any changes to the law must address the fact that IMRO and PPI set their charges in an arbitrary manner, and can impose such charges retrospectively. The question of not having an avenue of appeal must be tackled without delay as they are available in other aspects of our legislative framework. Why should our small traders be left exposed in this way? It is unacceptable.
It is bad enough that these organisations operate in a monopoly, but there is also no control over the two agencies and this cannot continue. There is nothing to stop them behaving in their current roughshod manner. This must be tackled with all due haste.
The Minister for Employment and Enterprise, Deputy Quinn has already indicated his intention to review the 1963 Act. I hope at this stage that it is well progressed and has revealed the injustices I have already outlined. I urge the Minister to take action as soon as possible. I know the Minister is committed to retaining and developing employment. However, if IMRO and PPI persist in their current penal campaign, it may result in job losses among our small traders, something we can ill afford.